Response To Tran's Blog on Obesity

The movie “Super Size Me” is a great example to portray obesity in America. I definitely agree that obesity is not caused by the actual foods of restaurants and is, in fact, due to the actual person’s intake of it. Nowadays, it is all about immediate pleasure and fast food is what satisfies those who crave these wants. Yes, having no time to cook as Tran says, can definitely be an excuse; however I believe that a person is never TOO busy that they must eat out every day. If people would be more controlled of themselves, these problems wouldn’t have greatly taken on a major health concern of Americans. Tran stated that “If Americans continue to eat like this; there is no telling what will happen to our population and the serious health risks that will occur.” I most certainly agree with this statement and on a website called Obesity in America, a research stated that obesity in woman can lead to infertility in the next generation because the levels of the hormone ghrelin are low in obese women. This will definitely place a toll on population and also more health issues since the women who experience this must be obese and with women being obese, men are as well. In restaurants, when a huge plate of delicious food is sitting in front of you, it becomes quite hard to exist. I feel that the proportion sizes that are served in restaurants that Americans consume are much too big for what is said to be one serving, causing people to eat much more than they should without really realizing it. I agree with Tran that Americans need to “put on their Nikes” and start living a much more active life, otherwise our population will decrease, as the obesity website states, and Americans will all become obese and extremely unhealthy.

Immigration

The definition of ‘immigration’ on the free dictionary website states that it is the “movement of non-native people into a country in order to settle there.” I feel that this definition of immigration has greatly changed over the years, and definitely not for the good. Immigrants are not coming to the United States for freedom, to learn the American English language, or for an education anymore. The majority of immigrants are solely coming to America for jobs, and that is it. They don’t try and make ‘friends’ with Americans, or even try to learn our language. It is kind of like they are trying to keep their little ‘posse’ together, and do not want to have anything to do with the American nation except for get their money.  Not only is this decreasing job availability to actual American U.S citizens, it is increasing the unemployment rate across the nation. I feel that the U.S national government should greatly be blamed for this problem. The government doesn’t care where they are from, as long as they will work for cheap. This is nonsense, and definitely breaking the law of immigration that states Aliens should have gained citizenship before becoming an American, and BEFORE they’re able to work in our nation. On a topics law website, the immigration law states that “congress limits the quantity of immigrant visas, which numbered 675,000 in 1995.” An immigrant visa is given to tourists and those who are coming to America for a temporal visit, mainly for business purposes. NOT TO WORK FULL TIME FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIFE. I think that these so called ‘visas’ should not be offered to immigrants unless they are being kept up with and should be on a certain time limit available to be in America.

Also, The borders need to be more secured in order to fix this national problem. As mentioned in class, the border wall is basically crap and they can get by it. It may not be easy, but very possible. On a global security website it states that there are “344.8 miles of primary pedestrian fence and 298.5 miles of vehicle fence along the Southwest border.” The pedestrian fence that was originally built was basically a waste and easy to overcome. A new fence has been built over a few many of those miles and is MUCH better compared to the old one. However, I feel that the government, in fact, built the fence but wants the aliens to come in order to obtain cheap labor. As Professor Seago stated, the government says “We want them, but we don’t want them.” I think that this is a bunch of very selfish behavior by the government and all the higher power wants is more and more money. To sum it up, the immigration problem in the United States is a definite problem.

Obama's Promises?

One of my classmates wrote an article called “Change we can(‘t) believe in" I had a few opinions of my own so I responded to his article with this:

There have definitely been many promises of fixing our nation that have been said, yet not been fulfilled. I think that you are right by saying it is upsetting the American citizens. I've ran into numerous amounts of people who say, and I agree, that Obama talks with great poise and confidence, which make people want to believe him. As he does in the "change we can believe in speech," giving people of the nation hope. He makes it seem that it’s as easy as waving a magic want or wiggling your nose in order to correct all problems. However, they become disappointed when he doesn't fulfill his promises, just as you mentioned. For example, on a website called opposingviews.com  it states that “The President promised an era of transparency and open government, but instead caved under the gun lobby’s radical agenda and influence. The result is that more American communities will continue to suffer from the horrific toll of gun violence.” On another website named npr.org, it talks about the foreign policy not being fulfilled. That Obama stated he would “attack ‘high value’ terrorists in Pakistan even without Pakistani approval.” What change have we seen that he is keeping is word? Nothing really… All in all, Obama needs to stop placing false hope in the hearts of Americans and maybe we all would applaud him a little more.

Obama and the Spending Deal

After reading an article from time.com called “Obama Says Spending Deal Close, GOP Doesn’t” I have a bit to say about this dilemma. The priorities of the House are definitely not for the best. Cutting $61 BILLION, yes, billion from domestic accounts such as, “administration priorities such as education…” is absolutely ridiculous. Seeing that our nation is willing to take away such a great amount of money from our education system is ludicrous. How are we supposed to become a better nation if our education is going to decrease? Yes, I agree that government spending needs to be cut in order for our economy to recover. However, WHY does education need to be cut to that great extent?  The article mentions that “The Labor Department reported that companies added 216,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell slightly to 8.8 percent.” I feel that this is a very good improvement on economy and I agree hands down with Obama when he says that “Given the encouraging news we received today on jobs, it would be the height of irresponsibility to halt our economic momentum because of the same old Washington politics.” I think the compromise needs to be reached soon and yes, if the budget negotiations do happen to break down, the government would definitely be halted and the economy’s recovery would be greatly jeopardized. I agree with a comment from the article by Kevin Smith that, “If they are taking EPA riders off the table, then we’re certainly not ‘close’ to a deal” Unfortunately he is right and an agreement needs to be reached fully. The first-termers of the Republicans show that they are ready to accept “some sort of compromise” because they didn’t follow the other Republican Paul Broun saying that “any bill with less than $61 billion was an insult” voting against it. I think this is a very smart move by the fresh Republicans; however, everyone needs to decide what compromise that they want. On a chart from the usgovernmentspending.com, it displays what percentage money is spend on. Defense being the highest at 25%, Health at 23%, Pensions at 21%, Welfare at 13% and remainder of 18%. I feel that we should lower the defense category. Why is our nation so concerned about what is going on in other countries and worrying so much about putting our guard up? We should definitely start focusing on fixing OUR country first, from the bottom up, in order to be a better nation.

Death Penalty!

In an article on Statesman.com, the editorial board talks about the death penalty. The intended audience this article is trying to grab attention is anyone who is involved with or is interested in the death penalties rights. The author states that the Supreme Court made a vote giving a “…significant victory for death penalty supporters…” However, he continues to say that at the bottom of this dilemma, the ultimate question is, “Are we sure we’ve got the right person?” The editorial feels that the death penalty advocates should “…live with perpetual fear of conclusive post-execution evidence that raises serious questions about guilt”  In the case of Skinner, the Supreme Court decision allowed him to follow  “a federal civil rights lawsuit in which he is seeking court-ordered testing of DNA evidence not used at his trial” The editorial gave this particular example in order to prove that innocent people are sentenced. In the Innocence Project, the editorial writes, “…there have been 266 post-conviction exonerations in the U.S, including 17 cases in which defendants who had been sentenced to death were found not guilty.” I personally am not in favor of killing an innocent suspect, however the evidence is limited at times and  people will take what others say as evidence, even if it isn’t true. These ways of death penalties have been going on for years, and it is unfortunate but it isn’t humanly possible to find absolutely all the evidence to prove someone innocent unless there was some kind of actual video of the incident.

David Brooks Analogy

In the OPINION section of the Austin Statesman, David Brooks argues that budgeting “has to be balanced”. He posted this article on Feb. 23, 2011, titled "Brooks: Just make everybody hurt. According to him and his title it has to “Make everyone hurt”.  He feels this way because of the agenda has been taken over by the budget cutters, while the “government defenders are waging tactical retreats”.  Brooks feels that these fiscal problems could remain constant for about 20 years. However, he is now doing things to help it. “Setting precedent  for a precess that will last decades.”  He also talks about Wisconsin and the citizens of the state as being unhappy. He then proceeds a good, witty argument that “he and the Republican majorities in Wisconsin were elected, and they are doing exactly what they told voters they would do”. I feel that the author is trying to get across to the whole nation by giving an example of the Wisconsin situation. However, when first reading his article the reader would think that it is only a Wisconsin problem. I feel that it is a problem across the United States, just as he does. Brooks should explain more about the whole picture instead of one piece of the puzzle. His argument is great and has a lot of backing up. He mentions in the article that “getting state and federal budgets under control will take decades.” I agree with him that it will take a long while to get everything under control using certain approaches.  Brooks analysis of making everyone hurt  seems brutal but it definitely makes sense when you have everything to back it up. As Brook says, “There will never be public acceptance if large sectors of society are excluded.”

Financial Crisis

On the BBC website, the US inquiry says the Financial crisis of 2008 is avoidable. I find this article very interesting they are blaming regulators, politicians and bankers. The report, this article mentions, for this financial crisis is from a number of reasons. When reading the full article you can see the full factors. Some of them are, failing to regulate finance, reckless and risk taking actions, too high of debts from households, and simply a lack of understanding the financial system. This article also mentions that the "leading figures of the George W Bush and Obama administrations were not let off lightly." Having these people put to "blame", this article says, that it will help prevent this large of a financial crisis in the future. Even though they were blamed, the report mentions that they respet and appreciate the efforts made by these higher people. However, these Republicans disagreed with the results of the report and "published a separate report" blaming it on someone else.